24 January 2023
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Victoria Court is a residential service providing personal care for up to 6 people with learning disabilities, mental health support needs and autistic people. The service consists of an adapted building, which includes individual bedrooms, communal spaces and an accessible outdoor space. At the time of our inspection there were 6 people using the service.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.
Right Support:
People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice. Staff supported people with their medicines in a way that promoted their independence. People had a choice about their living environment and were able to personalise their rooms. The service gave people care and support in a safe, clean, well equipped, well-furnished and well-maintained environment.
Right Care:
The service had plans and guidance for staff to support people with their individual risks. Staff understood how to protect people from poor care and abuse. Staff had training on how to recognise and report abuse and they knew how to apply it. The service had enough appropriately skilled staff to meet people’s needs and keep them safe.
Right Culture:
The provider had systems in place to monitor the quality of the service to people. However, we found quality assurance systems were not being completed regularly to ensure quality and potential safety issues were identified and acted upon. People received support from staff who knew them well. The service enabled people and those important to them to work with staff to develop the service. Staff ensured risks of a closed culture were minimised so that people received support based on transparency, respect and inclusivity.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection and update
The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 23 July 2019) and there was a breach of regulation 17. At this inspection we found the provider remained in breach of this regulation. This service has been rated requires improvement for the last two consecutive inspections.
At our last inspection we made recommendations regarding the management of medicines and mental capacity assessments. At this inspection we found the provider had acted on these recommendations and improvements had been made.
Why we inspected
We carried out an unannounced inspection of this service on 4 and 6 June 2019. A breach of legal requirements was found. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve safe care and treatment.
We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions safe and well-led which contain those requirements.
We looked at infection prevention and control measures under the Safe key question. We look at this in all care home inspections even if no concerns or risks have been identified. This is to provide assurance that the service can respond to COVID-19 and other infection outbreaks effectively.
For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has remained requires improvement. This is based on the findings at this inspection.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Victoria Court on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Enforcement
We have identified a repeated breach of Regulation 17 (Good Governance) at this inspection. Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.
Follow up
We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.